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IYDIYD 4
Despite a few frustrations during their investigations, the party did manage to learn several important pieces of information last session. In no particular order: 1) According to Morgana, the Veil-thinning visions you have been experiencing, which she calls "dream haunts," are reflections of what is happening in the dreamscape (though not necessarily present tense of literal.) 2) According to Morgana, the Piper you saw on the dreamscape is an avatar of Malachi, and the Shadowlord (who the party deduces is Arthon) has captured her. She said that if the party can figure out how to defeat the Shadowlord, she can use her magic to shield the avatar from him. 3) The sage Kalendral Quinn identified the key Genevieve gave you as an artifact of an old goddess of dreams named Tessera, and that the Book of Dreams was written by the monks of Tessera. 4) After Kalendral's untimely death, the party acquired the Book of Dreams and learned from it several secrets of lucid dreaming and a method for using the Clavis Somnis key and an Enter Dreamscape spell to banish the Dreamstone. 5) The group encountered a shadow demon who was seeking the Book of Dreams, claimed to be working for Chavalk, and tried to make a deal with Aler for both of them to destroy the book together, and "each get half the credit from Chavalk." The party instead defeated him. 6) The high priest of Fantarin, Petros Alaric, said Speak With Dead has consistently failed to work on victims of the shiver epidemic and/or nightmare plague, and that he has no idea why. Skenebrax related to the party that he traveled to the Land of the Dead and was unable to get a response from Gravil's spirit. Petros also offered to protect the party by warding the lucid dreaming apparatus while they use it. 7) The magesmith, Barris Wainwright, said he knew Arthon in passing many years ago when he was a young adventurer with a passion for archaeology, and that he got married and moved to Asture 15-20 years ago. He also provided some tips on demon fighting and loaned Adriel a magical cold iron sword. 8) While investigating the home of the slain bookseller, the party witnessed a dream haunt of a hairless black cat with needle-sharp teeth who stalked the guard that was accompanying them. It was then carried off into the ether by a spectral raven that reminded Jon of the owl he caught a glimpse of at Ruby's. 9) Jon had a strange interaction with some tinkers in the Market Square, warning them to sleep outside the city tonight if they didn't want their daughter to die. 10) Red's pigeon returned and reported to her that Greeley's stagecoach had proceeded to the highway and is heading straight for the capital city of Asture. Red told him to catch up to it (the pigeon flies about 10x faster than the carriage) and follow it to Asture, but that's a 3-day coach ride away, so it won't be back again soon unless the carriage diverts. 11) Red could not convince the city guards to tell her whether Vanessa had left town or not, but she bribed the stagecoach master who confirmed that Vanessa took a coach to the nearby mining community of Delsin. Aler conjectured that she might be headed back to the Darklands by way of the underground tunnels. 12) After Kalendral's death, Captain Black called it a shiver suicide (though she did promise a full autopsy at the Citadel later) and annoyed Jon by taking credit for the raid on the cult complex the previous night, assuring the crowd that these mysterious deaths would soon be a thing of the past now. Kalendral's daughter Seven, however, took pictures of the body with her mystic imager that showed three parallel scratches on the body, which the party concluded was more in keeping with the claws of the shadow demon they fought than with any self-inflicted knife wound. 13) The party asked Lucius Windbourne, the half-fey mystic at the seance parlor, to contact the slain bookseller Othaso. He didn't provide a ton of useful information but did give the name of the book (the Book of Dreams) and identified Othaso's means of death as being murdered by having his throat slit by an adversary whose face he could not see. Jon also asked him to contact the spirit of the Piper, but the seance medium said she did not appear to currently be dead. 14) The party returned to find Morgana had been the victim of a mysterious magical attack and cannot be revived (although she is definitely still alive.) Her pseudodragon Torria was adamant that she was NOT asleep and would never have gone dreaming alone. Her last message on the tablet read "Dreams Walk." Using True Sight, Aler caught a glimpse of a misty figure crouched over her frozen body, but then it was gone. When the party fetched Petros the cleric, he diagnosed Morgana as "hagridden," in other words, her soul has been seized by an ethereal hag. Torria the pseudodragon offers you all the use of her mistress' lucid dreaming apparatus if you will try to rescue her from the hag. 15) Then the four mounted demons attacked, and that was where we left off. Dream on!